Is Disney's Revival Era Over?

[The_Iceflash]

Now, if the stories, characters, plots start to follow the strict buddy roadtrip formula less and feature a touch more creativity now that Lasseter no longer has his grimy hands on everything--and I hope so--that may distinguish the next films as their own era. So far Disney is not suffering financially at all.

Except now it seems like they stepped into Indie-esque territory by giving the complete reins for full length feature films to first time directors instead of co-directing with the likes of Brad Bird, Andrew Stanton, and Pete Doctor. I’d rather that and keep the films higher quality than the type of films we’ve seen since.

[DisneyFan09]

Sorry for bumping this thread, but I wanted to give my thoughts about this issue. While it would be safe to say that the Revival era is over, it`s remarkable how Disney haven`t really changed the formula from the Revival era. With the exception of a few tweaks, most of their post-Revival features doesn`t feel particularly different from their Revival counterparts. They feel like coming from the same cloth. Sure, Raya and the Last Dragon was a Princess-movie that wasn`t a Musical, but it still had the components of the Revival era.
At least when Disney were ending the Renaissance, most of the movies were essentially coming off as complete departures from their counterparts (with the exception of Brother Bear). So it`s quite remarkable that Disney haven`t strayed away from the Revival formula. Hech, even Wish (despite not starring a Princess) were capitalizing Disney`s bread and butter. And now they`re going to release two sequels to the Revival Princess movies. So while the Revival era is definitively over, they still haven`t abandoned that formula completely. But remember that the Revival followed the synergy cycle of the Renaissance of being another successful Golden Age for Disney, so it`s a syngergy that the post-Revival era is following the same cycle as the post-Renaissance.

[MrXemnas1992]

Golden Era (1937-1942)
Wartime Era (1943-1949)
Silver Era (1950-1967)
Bronze/Dark/WWWHD Era (1968-1988)
Renaissance Era (1989-1999)
Experimental Era (2000-2009)
Revival Era (2010-2019)

Frozen 2 being the last pre-pandemic film makes for a logical cut off-point. Honestly, not sure to call this era. There's been big highs (Encanto) and middling lows (Wish)...

Streaming Era, Copper Era, Centennial Era...honestly it's too early to make any name call still.

Shutting down WDAS is a terrible idea. Especially since there's so few remaining in-house animation studios these days. Disney is just in a tiny slump rn, not a major decline.

again, way too early for this gloom-and-doom talk.

[PatchofBlue]

Yeah, I don't think we're doing anyone any favors by rushing to brand the last two films of Disney animation as any new era. If Moana 2 and next year's animated film do gangbusters, we'll probably just revert back to "Revival Era round 2" or something. We'll need a few more entries to know how to label whatever happened after Disney+ threw us for a loop, for better or for worse.

[MrXemnas1992]

Yeah, I don't think we're doing anyone any favors by rushing to brand the last two films of Disney animation as any new era. If Moana 2 and next year's animated film do gangbusters, we'll probably just revert back to "Revival Era round 2" or something. We'll need a few more entries to know how to label whatever happened after Disney+ threw us for a loop, for better or for worse.

Does feel like a second experimental era...Raya being this action-adventure fantasy, Encanto being the big musical, Strange World being sci-fi, Wish going for a throwback fairy tale vibe...lot of genre-shifting.

But yeah, still way too early for any labeling.

[Escapay]

I remember a lot of the online discourse on this very forum twenty years ago when it was widely accepted that the Disney Renaissance was over with Tarzan and we were in a new age that clearly was not living up to its predecessor. Folks were calling it a second dark age because all we had to compare it to was the post-Walt 1967-1988 period. At the time, The Walt Disney Company was not the behemoth it is today, so being a Disney fan was much more of an uphill battle compared to the vitriol that Disney Adults get today. At the time, nobody liked to proclaim their Disneydom except to fellow fans, so the Disney corners of the internet were more like echo chambers of mutual appreciation for all things House of Mouse. (granted, I'm also looking back with rose-colored glasses, willfully forgetting some of the dramatic arguments that used to happen here.) This was Disney as a smaller company (and in danger of being bought out by Comcast, to boot!), so even the wildly different Disney communities were more supportive of one another in the sense that we all knew we were fighting to preserve something that had a history and legacy worth saving. If anything, it was Old Disney fans versus New Disney fans, but with a begrudging agreement that at least they were Disney fans.

Over the past twenty years as the company grew and gained more IPs and fans, it also gained a mainstream reputation that made it far more easier to be ridiculed. Hence, why half the people online use the term Disney Adults in a pejorative way. Part and parcel with this is a lot more attention now being paid to films following "the Disney way," or someone's conception of what is the Disney way." (Forum discussion here used to call it Disney Essence, but let's not open that can of worms again.) And, honestly, the last five years (2020 through this year) has felt a lot like those post-Tarzan days when you had the most ardent Disney fans trying to say the films are still worthwhile, while the more critical ones are saying its best days are behind them, and then the more vicious Disney fans are content to define Disney solely on what their own favorite films are, without giving the new ones (or the new filmmakers behind them) a chance. (And the whole anti-remake movement has multiplied greatly over the past twenty years, but I'll not touch that because I, for the most part, like a lot of the live-action remakes.)

Thus, with a hindsight of the last time the company was down on its luck, I think it's a perfect time to say the Revival ended with Frozen 2 because everything since then has been torn apart in some form by various factions of Disney fandom, not to mention some of the more negative discourse from non-fans and critics as well. If memory serves, the Experimental Era wasn't even widely accepted with that label until a few years into the Revival (sometime post-Frozen, pre-Moana, I'd say), so logic suggests that whatever this post-Revival age we're in now won't have a label until we're a few years into the next prosperous age for the studio. I hate sounding so morbid, but once there are enough failures (warranted or not) in animated features from WDAS, someone's going to pitch an old-fashioned fairy tale musical that will get made with low/moderate expectations, but its release will make everyone say, "Disney's back!" and it will just jumpstart the next age of profitability, critical acclaim, and audience appreciation. My money is betting on somewhere in the 2028-2032 range, we'll be in a new Revival era, as it's a few years removed from Iger's 2026 departure, so there's bound to be a changing of the guard in a lot of high-profile positions throughout the company, including who will be in charge of Walt Disney Animation Studios.

Let's just see how well or how badly this post ages several years from now.

Alby